and girls even before they have entered their teens. Even the fine art of the opera palls upon such precociously stimulated imaginations, who have seized only the superficial pleasures of the scene, and will hence never come to a deep and genuine appreciation of the real thought of the composer.

We must remember that this period of life is not so important for what it is as for what it helps the child to become; but every period is helping towards the grand result, and we cannot make up fully at any later stage for what was neglected or ill done in the beginning.

We speak of a child as teething, for instance, when the tooth is cutting through the gum, but that is not the important moment to secure sound, healthy teeth; even ante-natal conditions affect them far more powerfully. So we do not sufficiently realize that false excitement, stimulating food, and coarse associations, in early childhood, produce unhealthy developments just as certainly as if applied in later years.

Dr. Jeffries tells us that the change in the eye which usually obliges us to put on glasses at about forty-five or fifty years of age, really begins at ten years. So do many of the most important changes in the physical system which only reveal themselves at a much later period.

The child of ten years old who is over excited by parties or theatres, or fed on stimulating or insufficient food, may often lay the foundations of the disease for which Vassar College or Ann Arbor will have to bear the blame. And so in mental life the insufficiency of the training of this period forms the great stumbling block in the way of our higher education.

It is in the home that all these safeguards for the growing child must be found; it is especially for them that the home is needful. We have no right to expect that the school can take its place. The school has its definite purpose, and rightly used will supplement the home life and make it more rich and beautiful; but we have no right to demand of it that it shall do the whole work and train the child in its whole physical, mental, and religious development. For this end the home must be a true republic, not a lawless democracy without order or law, where the turbulent majority overbear all the rights of the more experienced but less active minority; nor an absolute monarchy where the interests of the

feebler members are sacrificed to the benefit or the caprice of the few; but a commonwealth where each contributes his share to the general good, and receives in return the justice and help which is his due.

Such a home prepares its children for the broader field into which they must graduate sooner or later; it sends them forth armed to meet the dangers and strengthened to perform the duties of mature life; and it remains always a living memory to cheer the heart and stimulate the energies by the blessed influence which never dies out. In such homes the children, like roses, are beautiful in every stage of their development, because all become symmetrical in freedom, and the wide scope and variety of life makes a place for every individuality; and from such homes, where all work together towards a common goal, radiates an influence which blesses the whole community in which they are found. EDNAH D. CHENEY.

"IN HIS NAME,"

MR. HALE has taken those three Bible words

"In his name ". as the title of a story which, apart from its artistic excellence, deserves, by reason of its historical, ethical, and religious value, to be ranked as the best Christmas tale that has been written since the days of Dickens' Christmas Carol. In so doing he has awakened inquiry as to the real meaning of these words, which are so often used in the Bible, and so often misused out of it. To trust in Christ's name; to pray in his name; to give of your gold and silver, if you have them, or, if they are lacking, to give a cup of cold water even in his name; to seek deliverance from your besetting sins in his name, and in his name to cast out of society the demons of crime and sensuality, what does it all mean when dug out of the grave of dogmatic theology, in which too often it lies buried, and lifted up to the higher level of the thoughts and speech of daily life?

Nearly the whole difficulty about the question comes from our

modern notion that names are altogether arbitrary signs, just a heap of labels out of which you can take any one at random, tie it to any object you please, and feel sure that it will answer every purpose. But among the Orientals the name was descriptive of a fact, and not given from any wayward fancy; so that Beersheba was "the well of the oath," and Bethhaven "the house of idols." Jordan was "descending," and Kidron "very black," while the sea of Galilee was "Jam Chinnereth, the sea of the harp," because it resembled that instrument in shape. So eager was this desire to make the name a true representative of the person or thing, that a system of re-naming everywhere prevailed, and Simon, who stood in the front rank of the apostles to meet the first shock of any onset, was re-named "Peter,- a rock;" and Joseph, the Levite, who sold his lands to feed the starving Christians of the early church, received the new name of "Barnabas, the son of consolation." Hence came the well-known pun, 66 nomen est omen," the name tells you beforehand what kind of a man you will find one to be. Hence, also, to be called anything and to be that thing, however different among us, were synonymous expressions in the East; and Christ's beatitude - the peace-makers "shall be called the children of God" means neither more nor less than that they shall be his children.

And though among us the name is often bestowed arbitrarily, yet after having been once associated with a person, it stands for his real character and being. The instant you hear a list of different characters mentioned, as the patriot, the traitor; the hero, the saint, your mind recalls some one name to which each of these terms applies. Indeed the name and the character become at last so inseparable, that you cannot come across the latter without calling it by the former, just as Shylock, when enraptured by Portia's first decision, could not help believing that a Daniel had come to judgment. When, therefore, Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, and the puzzled disciples asked, "Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come?" he pointed to John the Baptizer, roving about with unwearied feet, in the spirit and power of the older prophets, and said, "I tell you Elijah has come. There he is, that man who was sent from God, and who is called John. He is in very truth the Elijah that was to come."

Now from this we can see how it is that a name, when once wedded to a person or thing, can grow in beauty, meaning, and power, and gain an ever-increasing influence over our hearts. Take, for example, the name of Christ. It means little to the child, and far too little to us children of a larger growth. Yet, when we have questioned, and he has answered; when we have sorrowed and he has comforted; when we have erred, and he has called us back; when we have fainted by the roadside, and he has renewed our strength, in short, when the influence of his life and gospel has made us eager to do the divine will in all holiness of heart, his name rises higher in our regard, until at last it is above every other human name.

Therefore to do anything in another's name is to do it by virtue of the spirit, power, and character expressed by that name. This is the essential meaning of the phrase, whatever else may at times be added. By the strength which entitles a man to be called "a Hercules," he performs his herculean labors. By the artistic skill which makes you call him "a Raphael," he shows on canvas the glory of the human form. By the military genius which suggested the name of "another Napoleon," he wins his battles on the bloody field. By that disinterested love for country which led you to call him a "second Washington," he manages affairs of state so wisely as to promote, not his own, but the common wealth. And by virtue of that pure, holy, consecrated spirit which makes you feel that he is Christ's, he takes up and carries forward the work which the Master began. For to do anything in another's name means, chiefly, to do it by having in yourself something of the spirit, power, and character which that name denotes.

Such, for instance, is the meaning of the precept to pray in Christ's name. There is no magical efficacy in simply saying the last three words. They are not a spell to exorcise the demons from the heart. They are not a charm to level every mountain of difficulty and fill up every yawning chasm of doubt. They are not the secret pass-word that will admit you to that divine kingdom of peace and love. They are not a heavenly countersign to bear witness to the genuineness of your prayers and secure their acceptance at the courts above. For to pray "in Christ's name," does not mean to close every petition with these words, as if that

would make it any more sure of being heard and answered, but rather, that we should come to God in the same spirit of trust and love that moved the Christ himself. When, with the same spirit in us that was in him, we come just as he used to come; when we are as willing as he was to take whatever heaven shall send so, Father, for so it seems good in thy sight; when we trust as he trusted, love as he loved, and like him seek not our own will but the will of him who made us, then it is that we truly pray in his

name, for we pray as he used to pray himself.

even

Yet

But again we are urged to seek the truth" in his name." this does not mean that the gospel will yield up all its secrets to us if we simply pronounce over it these three words; for it will hold those secrets fast and never let them go, till we come in a Christ-like spirit, with an open mind, a loving heart, and ready will, eager to catch every truth, however opposed to our prejudices, and willing to live up to it, however great a sacrifice it demands. It is by having something of the mind that was in him formed also in us, that we are able to learn the truth as it is in Jesus. Yet even when we have learned all he taught, we have not done everything that is meant by seeking the truth in his name, for we have not done all that he did himself. Our religion is often spoken of as a stream which bubbled up to the surface of the earth, eighteen centuries ago, and has been flowing ever since that time, through the world; and though, of all figures of speech to express our faith, this is perhaps the best, it is still very incomplete. No long river was ever kept full by simply its own fountain; it would dry up and vanish if it were not renewed every spring by the melting snow, every fall by the drenching rain, and every summer's eve by the gentle dew. So the stream of Christianity is continually fed and kept full to the top of its banks, by those new revelations of divine goodness, power, and will, which "drop as the rain, and distil as the dew." It was to these daily and hourly intimations of the Holy Spirit that Jesus listened, no less than to what God had spoken at sundry times, and in divers manners, unto the fathers, by the prophets; and if we seek truth in his name we shall seek it where he did, in the full stream which flows from the past, and in the whispers of the still, small voice this day, this moment, to our souls.